X ENGLISH LITERATURE IN OUR UNIVERSITIES (I)

XI ENGLISH LITERATURE IN OUR UNIVERSITIES (II)

XII ON STYLE


INDEX




LECTURE I.

INAUGURAL

Wednesday, January 29, 1913


In all the long quarrel set between philosophy and poetry I know of
nothing finer, as of nothing more pathetically hopeless, than Plato's
return upon himself in his last dialogue 'The Laws.' There are who find
that dialogue (left unrevised) insufferably dull, as no doubt it is
without form and garrulous. But I think they will read it with a new
tolerance, may-be even with a touch of feeling, if upon second thoughts
they recognise in its twisting and turnings, its prolixities and
repetitions, the scruples of an old man who, knowing that his time in
this world is short, would not go out of it pretending to know more than
he does, and even in matters concerning which he was once very sure has
come to divine that, after all, as Renan says, 'La Verité consiste dans